The cameras worked by constantly recording even before the “record” button was pressed, periodically deleting any footage that hadn’t been intentionally recorded. Once the “record” button was pressed by the officer, it would capture the 30 seconds before the button had been pressed, thanks to this method of constantly being on standby.
But it was a hard concept for cops to understand. They weren’t being properly trained on the fact that their own cameras didn’t start recording once they pressed record. Hitting that button saved the 30 seconds prior as well, a neat feature that really bit them in the ass.
Maybe bodycams should randomly record even when the RECORD button isn’t pressed by an officer; and the pre-record time should be random from say 2 minutes to 30 seconds before. And the recording should stop a random 30-60 seconds AFTER they hit ‘STOP’. So they never know when they’re being recorded. If they’re not pulling illegal shit, they shouldn’t have any problem with that, right?
In fact, with storage capabilities nowadays, bodycams should ALWAYS be recording, period. Gotta go to the bathroom? Too damn bad. You’re a public servant. Trust the auditors to redact that if it comes to a court subpoena. You signed up for it. Extraordinary powers come with extraordinary sacrifices.
Jeebus Chripes. No wonder so many people say ACAB.
When we fly we are forced to let some stranger see our junk with the full body scanner
Gotta make sure no one is smuggling a full sized tube of tooth paste up their ass
Seems reasonable given that
I think we just need to revise the laws to say that a cop’s testimony doesn’t have any more weight than anyone else’s testimony unless it’s backed up by their bodycam.
Taking cops at their word made sense when we didn’t have this technology. It doesn’t make sense anymore.
I keep getting left off jury duty by honestly answering the question about whether I would give less weight to a cops testimony because they’re a cop.
I suppose if there’s ever a civil jury trial that doesn’t involve a police testimony, I might serve in a jury.
A bit of a shame because I don’t mind being on a jury. I’m not trying to get out of it. I’m just being honest.
The company that sells the cameras and the police buying them don’t want that. The guy who owns the company that makes most body cams advertises that the cameras don’t record more accurately than the human eye. This enables cops to show a blurry 16fps 720p video and go “it looked like he was pulling out a gun”.
That might indeed be the result sometimes :). Doesn’t matter. Since the US seems OK with Amazon making their drivers pee in a bottle and docking them points for gazing away while driving, why not make police submit to full recording like this?
Because the police aren’t the slaves, they’re the overseers.
Maybe bodycams should randomly record
For what memory chips cost these days, they should record continuously anytime the camera (accelerometer in the camera) detects motion within the previous 10 minutes. If they’re on-body, or in a moving car, they should be recording.
The “save” button could work the same: mark 30 seconds before until “save” is deactivated to be “do not delete this for rotation” - but otherwise, save everything anyway, only rotate out after 2TB of memory card is full, and download at the end of every shift.
Better still, download continuously to the car and 5G it to a cloud server where the department can’t delete it.
Gotta go to the bathroom? Too damn bad. You’re a public servant.
you lost me here, this is an insane statement. a camera always on even when youre in the bathroom?
if i was in a public restroom with a police officer, I now have to worry about being on camera in the one place where cameras are illegal? come on…
This would be nice but it ignores the fact cops (like we have today) shouldn’t exist at all. Cops are not the only way to do law enforcement.
Well hey, I have a few questions:
- Why do bodycams even have a user-accessible switch? Why isn’t some sort of magnetic or RFID/NFC mechanism that’s only actuated by the docking station back at the precinct?
- Why aren’t they running constantly for as long as they’re on shift?
- Why do police (or any law enforcement mandated to wear body cams) have literally any control or review capability over the cameras and the footage they generate? Why isn’t an entirely discrete and separate agency firewalled off from the cops?
Any police testimony not accompanied by some kind of recording should be inadmissible in court. Likewise any evidence collected while a camera isn’t recording should also be inadmissible. Police have shown again and again that they can’t be trusted and they’re almost always a less reliable witness than some random bystander. It’s about time we actually started treating them that way.
I took a speeding ticket to court, had the officer sitting behind me pre-trial talkin’ smack with a colleague “why are you here? Speeding, ha, how hard is that?” Yeah, so he gets on the stand and “reads from his notes” every single thing he said was fabricated, only my location was accurate, his location was a lie: in reality he “witnessed” me from a side street 3 blocks back from the intersection he crossed but in his testimony he “observed me passing a line of five cars” - yeah, except that never happened, what I was passing was a single gardening truck doing 10mph for the past 3 blocks, the other 4 cars were stacked up behind me.
Maybe he really thought that’s what he saw, which is all the more reason his dashcam should have been the evidence, not his notebook. https://www.restonyc.com/can-you-not-be-a-police-officer-with-a-high-iq/
Because we dont want or need videos of police pissing in urinals, and they’re human and deserve to not have that recorded
I’d be in favor of a “private” button that they can press for such circumstances. The video is still recorded, but marked private - plays back black and silent on ordinary playback software. If it’s ever in legitimate question of whether or not “private” was pressed inappropriately the private video can be restored to full picture and sound with the appropriate code key.
Don’t put mirrors in front of urinals. Problem solved.
The FOV can’t actually capture that, if you’ve ever seen wearable cam footage.
If they’re human then why don’t they act like it?
It’s not like there’s something to see when a cop pulls nothing out of his pants.
Richard Pinheiro was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of fabricating evidence in 2018 and received a three-year suspended sentence and two years of supervised probation, according to the Baltimore Sun.
How in the hell is malicious fraud that results in destroying someone’s livelihood, reputation, and freedom with years of jailtime only a misdemeanor with a suspended sentence and probation. This kind of egregious action is waaaaay more damaging to the public welfare and safety than an individual possessing drugs for personal use, and yet the former gets you a “shame a on you”, and the latter rips you from your family, your job, your life. This is some backwards shit.
Yeah, police falsifying evidence should carry the same penalties as the crime they falsified evidence for and a guaranteed firing. This country treats cops with a bizarre level of leniency
Not just the penalties for that specific crime either but the penalties the victim would get. Most cops plant stuff on people with criminal pasts or existing legal problems because they’ll have a much harder time proving they are innocent. Such people get much higher penalties.
Cops are allowed to break the law constantly and get off easy because politicians argue “no one will want to be a cop if we hold them accountable for their actions.”
It’s the dumbest thought process one could have. Wouldn’t you want GOOD cops that follow laws instead of just people who know how to yell and shoot?
No, politicians make shit up to cover the fact what they really want are cops that obey them regardless of the law. Because they know if cops enforced the law equally, they’d be arrested for corruption.
No. They want loyalty to protect their needs. It has shit to do with protecting the people.
Well they wouldn’t want to be politicians if they couldn’t be corrupt shits in it to line their own pockets and hurt people they dislike. Of course they don’t understand why someone would work for the goverment for any other reasons.
We save flok video in cloud but cops cams are dumb enough that they can be turned off and on and that they save only locally, WTF
